Musings on leadership, management, strategy, economics, philosophy, and current affairs.

08/29/2009

When the resources of an organization are not applied effectively with its
vision / mission, the organization is not aligned and as per research
more than 50% of the organizations are not aligned. I have heard many
middle managers complain (senior mangers confide) about the non-clarity
around vision / mission / goals and most of them are aware of the
disconnect between their daily actions and the vision of the
organization. I have observed that several definitions of vision,
mission, and goals blur the distinction instead of creating clarity,
also being one of the causes of disconnect. One effective way to
communicate the difference, that I have found useful, is the following triangle (I am not sure
of the source, probably Gary Harpst book).

Thus, the first step to bring the alignment in the company is to ensure that the vision / mission / goals and plans are well communicated and understood within the organization. Subsequently to the basic step of vision, mission clarification, a six-step plan by Marshall Goldsmith is quite useful in aligning, where he suggests having meetings with direct reports every quarter and to ask them following questions -

Where are we going?

Where are you going?

What are you doing well?

What changes can lead to improvement?

How can I help?

What suggestions do you have for me

This method allows the leader to inspect and re-set the priorities if required by the changes in the business environment. Thus, keeping the organization aligned.

08/28/2009

Dan Pink makes a convincing case suggesting the
mightiness of intrinsic motivation over extrinsic motivation. In past few
months, we have heard lot of studies backed findings against the extrinsic
motivations from the field of social science. The studies became more frequent
as the news related with executive bonuses started making to front pages, due
to which I find these skewed.

On the subject of motivation, after Maslow’s hierarchy of
needs, I have found Edward Deci as one of the most incisive thinkers. He had his
book published in 1995 in which he propagated the concept of extrinsic and
intrinsic motivational needs - Autonomy + Competence + Relatedness being the
part of intrinsic motivational needs (which Mr. Dan has revised as Autonomy +
Mastery + Purpose). Without going in much detail I would draw attention to two
important points related with autonomy, as mentioned by Mr. Deci -

2.Importance of self-knowledge to distinguish
between ‘autonomy’ and ‘individualism’

Mr. Deci has suggested four ways to promote autonomy:

1.Give choices

2.Set limits with explanations

3.Set goals and evaluate performance (involve
people in setting goals).

4.Administering rewards and recognitions
(encourage doing best instead of competitiveness).

Mr. Deci states that extrinsic needs are - wealth, fame, and
beauty; and intrinsic needs are autonomy, competence, and relatedness. In my
opinion, we should not look at extrinsic vs intrinsic, rather we should use
combination of both in a balanced way, as the needs are individualistic than
general, and also differ based on the level on Maslow's pyramid.

08/26/2009

John Baldoni writes that leaders can use 'stories' to inform, to involve, and to inspire people. Jim Rohn, the business philosopher, uses the term 'story-teller' to quote from the Bible, signifying the age-old importance of connection with stories. My four-year old developed fascination with the stories before he could speak. We are apparently hard wired for connecting with stories, the reason for Stalin's (or Erich's) quotation, 'the death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a statistic' to ring true.

Similarly, the other tool leaders can utilize is 'metaphors' - an appropriate and correctly timed metaphor can convey the message much faster and more effectively. Leonard Sayles, in Managerial Behavior: Administration in Complex Organizations, used a metaphor of the 'orchestra conductor' to describe a leader / manager and stated,

"The manager is like a symphony orchestra conductor, endeavoring to
maintain a melodious performance in which the contributions of the
various instruments are coordinated and sequenced, patterned and paced,
while the orchestra members are having various personal difficulties,
stage hands are moving music stands, alternating excessive heat and
cold are creating audience and instrumental problems, and the sponsor
of the concert is insisting on irrational changes in the program."

08/25/2009

The principles of Economics are ever evolving and the current crisis we are going through is bound to bring forth some fundamental changes in the way we think about the 'economics of growth'. It is clear that the current principle of ever lasting growth quarter on quarter is one of the root causes of greed infested reckless behavior that led us to this crisis. Probably we are in the evolutionary stage where new principles will be tested. One of such interesting principle is proposed by Stan Stalnaker where he suggests adopting the principle of growth followed by human cells i.e. 'circular growth', a patter of development, replacement and renewal that can be maintained indefinitely. It makes immense sense as in the human body the only cells that grows constantly are cancerous cells. Stan has also referred couple of companies - one brewery in India and a wood furniture maker in Switzerland - which are following 'circular growth' economics. Time will tell if we make this evolutionary shift on the back of current crisis or resort to same old methods post-crisis (awaiting another crisis!).

08/24/2009

Probably, the most important ingredient of any 'change management' is a sense of urgency. Author John P. Kotter in his book A Sense of Urgency details experience of some managers and his solution to generate that urgency. In any book, applicability of author's suggestion depends on the reader's corresponding situation. I liked that Mr. Kotter very aptly distinguished between the 'urgency' (read fire fighting) and 'true urgency'. It is very similar to what Mr. Covey had propagated years ago. Out of the tactics suggested by Mr. Kotter, I liked linking internal and external focus, the example of use of video where customer's complain was communicated to production people through video recorded message, behaving with urgency but not with anxiety or sheer speed, looking for opportunities in crisis (nothing new about this), and getting rid of NoNos.

These tactics can be applied not only at the time of change, but I would suggest to apply it anticipating change as by the time change / crisis strikes it is already too late. Being externally focused and linking it with internal capabilities need not wait for any change - being proactive never hurts, which if combined with a sense of urgency can put brakes to several advancing crisis situation.

08/21/2009

Mark Cuban, on 18th Aug, answered few questions posted by his readers. I am not a fan of Mark's views but the answers to these questions got me thinking. First question was on income disparity -

"What does he think about the growing income disparity in the U.S.? Does he dispute the notion of a disappearing middle class?"

His answer was classic:

"Just because Usain Bolt sets a world record every time he runs doesn’t
make the other runners slow. It makes them slower than the best. The
middle class can continue to move forward when those who earn the most
out perform.
"

In companies, a high performer such as Usain Bolt should only enable to raise the performance of others, just as he compelled Tyson Gay to beat his personal best and clock 9.71. However, in many companies in the guise of 'equality', average performance is the order-of-the-day (very well exemplified in the movie Hot Fuzz, where the outlier is made an outcast). Leaders should not accept this and instead celebrate the outliers.

His second point ...

"Our government doesn’t know the difference between an
investor and a speculator or trader. If we did, we would understand
that we should tax the trader/speculator more heavily than the investor.

The investor allows entrepreneurs access to capital and allows
them to work with it and build businesses, which in turn build
employment and do great things for the economy. The trader/speculator
pushes companies to make more money now rather than invest in doing the
right thing for the company."

This started me thinking on management styles. Some companies manage employees in speculative ways i.e. give them short-term quick-hitting unreasonable goals and throw them out when they are not met.

And some companies manage in 'investing' style i.e. invest in the employees based on what they can become and not what they are today. They invest in training and development, give them enough room to spread their creative wings. The risk taking is based on the larger vision of the person and the company.

It is worthwhile to monitor if the leadership style is speculative or investing.

Mark mentioned - "Believe it or not, there are shareholders who are fine with companies
not beating their numbers if the company is making progress towards a
clearly defined goal."